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Don't mess with the Twiss-man

Discussion in 'Writers' Workshop' started by Sneed, Jan 22, 2009.

  1. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    NOTES: "Barton" means Barton College. Since this was written for the student newspaper it was assumed that was known. "Bully's" is Barton's on-campus grille.

    Just a fun piece I came up with after interviewing this guy for a separate feature story on the theater he was helping Barton build last fall. Felt like throwing it to the wolves here and seeing what you all thought.

    -------------------------------------

    Adam Twiss.

    Why does that name sound so familiar?

    Barton’s new theater director? Eh, yeah, I guess he does some of that too.

    Or maybe it’s that guy who was a goalie for the 1984 NCAA Division III soccer national champion runners-up.

    Of course, that’s it!

    Indeed, Twiss the director and Twiss the goalie are one and the same, and the latter was once -- I mean, is -- quite the athlete. In addition to playing soccer for his four years at Brandeis University, where he acquired his first undergrad degree years before getting into theater and eventually finding his way to Barton, Twiss also played goalie alongside near-Olympians for a club hockey team at the school.

    Though recruited to play soccer, it was hockey that has produced some of his most vivid memories from those days of youth and athleticism and all things that we college students will only appreciate when we are also 40-something years old.

    The Twiss hockey adventures began in striking fashion. It was one of his first days in the dorm; his roommate played for the hockey team; Twiss let slip that he’d played some hockey in high school.

    “Well dude, we need a goalie!” Roomie declared.

    “Well, OK,” Twiss replied. After all, he was an all star in his youth days. Bring it on, right?

    So the next day Twiss laces up the blades and hits the ice for the first time in years – in borrowed equipment, since when one attends Brandeis for soccer he typically doesn’t expect impromptu club hockey recruitment.

    It was a rough couple hours, but then, it takes a lot more than WD-40 to shake the rust off an out-of-practice teenaged goalie.

    By the end of the session, Twiss was feeling OK and expecting the next day’s practice to be better, when Roomie skates over and says, “OK, so here’s where we’re meeting for our first match tomorrow …”

    “Who are we playing?” gulps Twiss.

    “URI.”

    As in, the University of Rhode Island. Sure, it was their JV, but then, Brandeis club hockey facing the URI JV back then would be like, oh, say Barton’s president Dr. Norval Kneten taking on, well, anyone in Halo.

    And so, with one practice under his belt, Twiss fended off over 50 shots from the JV Rams.

    “I actually had a pretty good game,” he says. Of course, blocking 50 shots when the other team puts 65 on goal still ends up as a 15-1 loss.

    In their next game, later that week, Twiss was pitted against Division II Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which, though known for its brains, also has a solid hockey program.

    It was another 50-save night for Twiss in a 15-2 rout.

    Jeesh. Why even keep playing?

    “Well thankfully, things settled down a bit after that,” says Twiss. “And we actually won some.”

    Included on the team were a handful of fellas who trained with Team USA in the years following their legendary 1980 Olympic defeat of Russia, while some others couldn’t have been towel boys for the team from Bahamas.

    “But they were real enthusiastic,” Twiss says with a grin.

    But win they did, at least, enough for Twiss to round out his club hockey days with an approximately .500 record.

    As for soccer …

    That ’84 title game was a marathon contest against Wheaton (Ill.), in the one year between 1982 and 1987 that North Carolina’s UNC-Greensboro actually wasn’t in championship.

    Tied 1-1 after regulation, the bout lasted three overtimes and was eventually decided by shootout. Twiss never got in the game, and, despite having been recruited, never advanced past backup status.

    “When you go to the national championship, you attract a lot of attention,” said Twiss with an amused smile. “We had all-Americans coming out of our ears after that.”

    Not long after Twiss’s departure, Brandeis constructed the Joseph P. and Clara Ford Athletic and Recreation Complex, a portion of which is often used by the Boston Celtics as a practice facility.

    One year in the late 80s, Twiss had returned to visit the new facility. When he walked into one of the basketball gyms, he found himself in the presence of Larry Bird, shooting alone.

    “I’m sure he remembers it,” Twiss chuckled.

    Hence, all of Barton is now connected to the 2008 NBA champions.

    Basketball has also been a favorite of Twiss, who says, “I’ve probably logged more hours, over my life, playing basketball than any other sports. I never saw enormous growth with it, but I love it.” A moment later, he added with a wry smile, “I guess I’m one of those enthusiastic players.”

    Twiss has seen his sports background pay dividends throughout his theater career.

    “I use it all the time,” says Twiss of his sports background. “There’s often this big distinction between sports and art, and I think that’s nonsense, especially in theater. There’s that team aspect of what you’re doing in theater, which is critical.”

    Though the pickup games have grown further apart with the number of candles on the cake each year, Twiss maintains a love for sport despite his increasingly resistant body.

    “There’s a reason people retire around 40,” Twiss says with a laugh. “Sprained ankles take longer and longer to heal.”

    That leaves only one thing to satisfy Twiss’ competitive cravings ... weekly Halo showdowns with the president.

    Winner gets free Bully’s.
     
  2. spud

    spud Member

    In short, it's too cutesy. I'll leave the line by line edits to those with a little more time, but the nuts and bolts of the story, the meaty flesh toward the middle, should be more your style. I'm not suggesting you abandon flair or whatever you want to call it, but playing this "is it or isn't it" game is kind of like teasing your reader out of the gate.

    My advice would be to get the word count, go through and lop half of it off. Leave in your favorite parts and the stuff that genuinely needs to be in the story for the sake of understanding, and work from there. There's just too much fluff, even for a light reader.

    It's well-written, so I don't doubt the talent to make the necessary edits is there.
     
  3. PeteyPirate

    PeteyPirate Guest

    NOTES: "Barton" means Barton College. Since this was written for the student newspaper it was assumed that was known. "Bully's" is Barton's on-campus grille.

    Just a fun piece I came up with after interviewing this guy for a separate feature story on the theater he was helping Barton build last fall. Felt like throwing it to the wolves here and seeing what you all thought.

    -------------------------------------

    Adam Twiss.

    Why does that name sound so familiar?

    Barton’s new theater director? Eh, yeah, I guess he does some of that too.

    Or maybe it’s that guy who was a goalie for the 1984 NCAA Division III soccer national champion runners-up.

    Of course, that’s it!

    The lead is all wrong. The name of the goalie for the 1984 Division III men's soccer runners-up is not familiar to anyone except his parents. And it wasn't even for the school for whose newspaper this was written.


    Indeed, Twiss the director and Twiss the goalie are one and the same, and the latter was once -- I mean, is -- quite the athlete. In addition to playing soccer for his four years at Brandeis University, where he acquired his first undergrad degree years before getting into theater and eventually finding his way to Barton, Twiss also played goalie alongside near-Olympians for a club hockey team at the school.

    There is not anything in this story that supports your assertion that he is still "quite the athlete." I'm not saying he isn't. I'm just saying you didn't support it.


    Though recruited to play soccer, it was hockey that has produced some of his most vivid memories from those days of youth and athleticism and all things that we college students will only appreciate when we are also 40-something years old.

    You led with soccer, but then explicitly made hockey more important. Why not lead with hockey?


    The Twiss hockey adventures began in striking fashion. It was one of his first days in the dorm; his roommate played for the hockey team; Twiss let slip that he’d played some hockey in high school.

    “Well dude, we need a goalie!” Roomie declared.

    “Well, OK,” Twiss replied. After all, he was an all star in his youth days. Bring it on, right?

    So the next day Twiss laces up the blades and hits the ice for the first time in years – in borrowed equipment, since when one attends Brandeis for soccer he typically doesn’t expect impromptu club hockey recruitment.

    It was a rough couple hours, but then, it takes a lot more than WD-40 to shake the rust off an out-of-practice teenaged goalie.

    By the end of the session, Twiss was feeling OK and expecting the next day’s practice to be better, when Roomie skates over and says, “OK, so here’s where we’re meeting for our first match tomorrow …”

    “Who are we playing?” gulps Twiss.

    “URI.”

    As in, the University of Rhode Island. Sure, it was their JV, but then, Brandeis club hockey facing the URI JV back then would be like, oh, say Barton’s president Dr. Norval Kneten taking on, well, anyone in Halo.

    Is it common knowledge on campus that this guy is a terrible Halo player? If so, I suppose I understand it.


    And so, with one practice under his belt, Twiss fended off over 50 shots from the JV Rams.

    “I actually had a pretty good game,” he says. Of course, blocking 50 shots when the other team puts 65 on goal still ends up as a 15-1 loss.

    In their next game, later that week, Twiss was pitted against Division II Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which, though known for its brains, also has a solid hockey program.

    It was another 50-save night for Twiss in a 15-2 rout.

    Jeesh. Why even keep playing?

    “Well thankfully, things settled down a bit after that,” says Twiss. “And we actually won some.”

    Included on the team were a handful of fellas who trained with Team USA in the years following their legendary 1980 Olympic defeat of Russia, while some others couldn’t have been towel boys for the team from Bahamas.

    “But they were real enthusiastic,” Twiss says with a grin.

    But win they did, at least, enough for Twiss to round out his club hockey days with an approximately .500 record.

    As for soccer …

    That ’84 title game was a marathon contest against Wheaton (Ill.), in the one year between 1982 and 1987 that North Carolina’s UNC-Greensboro actually wasn’t in championship.

    Tied 1-1 after regulation, the bout lasted three overtimes and was eventually decided by shootout. Twiss never got in the game, and, despite having been recruited, never advanced past backup status.

    He was the backup? I think the soccer angle was iffy to begin with. This leads me to believe it doesn't even deserve a mention. I think you should have just written about his theatre stuff, or if you cover only sports, pass the story along to whoever covers arts.


    “When you go to the national championship, you attract a lot of attention,” said Twiss with an amused smile. “We had all-Americans coming out of our ears after that.”

    Not long after Twiss’s departure, Brandeis constructed the Joseph P. and Clara Ford Athletic and Recreation Complex, a portion of which is often used by the Boston Celtics as a practice facility.

    One year in the late 80s, Twiss had returned to visit the new facility. When he walked into one of the basketball gyms, he found himself in the presence of Larry Bird, shooting alone.

    “I’m sure he remembers it,” Twiss chuckled.

    Hence, all of Barton is now connected to the 2008 NBA champions.

    This is an absurd statement, and I'm not saying it because I want to be critical.


    Basketball has also been a favorite of Twiss, who says, “I’ve probably logged more hours, over my life, playing basketball than any other sports. I never saw enormous growth with it, but I love it.” A moment later, he added with a wry smile, “I guess I’m one of those enthusiastic players.”

    Twiss has seen his sports background pay dividends throughout his theater career.

    “I use it all the time,” says Twiss of his sports background. “There’s often this big distinction between sports and art, and I think that’s nonsense, especially in theater. There’s that team aspect of what you’re doing in theater, which is critical.”

    Though the pickup games have grown further apart with the number of candles on the cake each year, Twiss maintains a love for sport despite his increasingly resistant body.

    “There’s a reason people retire around 40,” Twiss says with a laugh. “Sprained ankles take longer and longer to heal.”

    That leaves only one thing to satisfy Twiss’ competitive cravings ... weekly Halo showdowns with the president.

    Is this true? Does the president play Halo?


    Winner gets free Bully’s.
     
  4. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    Haha wow....almost everything you pointed out was meant tongue-in-cheek. Except the angling off soccer thing, but I thought that was more a pedigree than "club hockey goalie who got killed half the time."

    Of course the president of a college is terrible at Halo. Never played.

    The lead was sarcastic, the fact that he was Not to be taken seriously at all. The whole column was a lighthearted look at what a prominent man once was. The folks at Barton got it because they know these characters.

    Of course the fact that Barton's connected to an NBA championship team is absurd. How dumb you think I am?

    Thanks for the feedback, but clearly you missed the point. Which is OK. I appreciate your feedback, and if everything I wrote hadn't been intended as humorous, of course you would be absolutely correct.
     
  5. spud

    spud Member

    Did you really want feedback? Or just someone to pat you on the back for an article you liked?

    The folks at Barton got it because they know these characters.

    ...kind of defeats the purpose of posting it here and expecting "feedback" then, doesn't it?
     
  6. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    Eh, maybe a little bit of both....
     
  7. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Douche thread by Sneed. Be sure not to keep this for a clip file.
     
  8. Sneed

    Sneed Guest

    lol ok my bad
     
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